


Every Human Love

by angelacaduca (kallistei)



Series: Every Human Love [2]
Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-23
Updated: 2007-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-23 23:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1582574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallistei/pseuds/angelacaduca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. "Jaejoong is Yoochun's best, worst secret, held safe behind closed doors and drawn curtains."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Child Ephemeral

Everyone who visits Yoochun's dorm room comments on the figurine that stands at the far corner of his desk.

When asked, Yoochun replies, his fingers just touching the curve of a porcelain cheek, "Oh, that's Jaejoong. He's been my best friend since I was a kid."

In general, people think it's a joke, smile at the whimsy, or decide Yoochun just doesn't want to talk about it, move on to speak about other, safer, things. What they don't know is that after the door's closed behind them, Yoochun takes down the statue, sets it gently on the carpet and says, "They're gone, you can come out now." They don't see the statue grow and stretch, bend the air and become a young man just Yoochun's height, with pale skin, honey-gold hair, and strange eyes that glint brown and blue by turns. (He used to be a boy just Yoochun's height, and then a teenager who grew as Yoochun did. Now, he's this.)

No-one else has seen Jaejoong - stretched out on Yoochun's bed with a computer game, beating Yoochun's high scores; humming along to the radio as he proof-reads Yoochun's essay; half-helping, half-getting in the way as Yoochun tries to make dinner; laughing and drying Yoochun's tears at the end of a sappy romantic movie that Yoochun wouldn't even admit he owned to anyone else. Jaejoong is Yoochun's best, worst secret, held safe behind closed doors and drawn curtains.

Sometimes at night, with Jaejoong breathing against Yoochun's shoulder, Yoochun dreams about dropping the statue, watching it fall and shatter. In his dreams, he wonders if that would set Jaejoong free, if Jaejoong would step out of the shards of broken china, if he would open the curtains and let the unfiltered sun touch him for the first time. Yoochun dreams about taking Jaejoong to lectures, leaning together and complaining about the boring ones; about walking next to Jaejoong in the park, barefoot in the grass; about showing him the world outside Yoochun's room, the everyday, ordinary life that Yoochun leads when he's not with Jaejoong.

Yoochun wakes up terrified that he's actually done it, that the statue is gone, that the door is open, that Jaejoong has walked out of Yoochun's life; or worse, that with the statue broken, Jaejoong has just ceased to exist (that he never existed at all?). Yoochun's heart pounds in his ears, desperate, until he finds the courage to open his eyes and sees Jaejoong, sitting in the desk chair, staring at photographs of distant cities on Yoochun's computer screen, until Jaejoong turns and says, "Good morning, sleepyhead," and smiles.


	2. The Living Creature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do I know you? / Not yet.

As a child, Yunho's favourite place is a tree overlooking a stream in the woods behind his house. It's a secret place, his place, and he loves the shade of the tree the way children love things that are only theirs, and tells the laughing stream all of his secrets.

One day, Yunho scrambles over the bank and stops dead when he sees another boy sitting in Yunho's favourite spot between the roots of the tree. "Hello?" Yunho says, wary. He's never seen anyone here before.

"Hello, Yunho," the boy replies.

"Uh, do I know you?" Yunho asks.

"Not yet," the boy says, and grins. "I'm Junsu."

"Hi, Junsu," Yunho replies, ingrained politeness covering his surprise, unwittingly charmed by the smile, and shakes a soft, cool hand with a surprisingly firm grip.

In no time at all, Yunho and Junsu are the best of friends, and Yunho is telling Junsu all of the secrets he used to tell the water (the girl he likes, the boy who thought he could bully Yunho's sister, the hushed phone calls his father makes at night). Although every time Yunho arrives by the stream, Junsu is sitting where he was the first time Yunho met him, Yunho never sees Junsu anywhere else. It's months before Yunho thinks to ask why.

"I live here," Junsu says, gesturing at the stream. "I don't need anything else."

"But," Yunho says. "That's... Where's your family?"

Junsu laughs, and suddenly Yunho can't separate it from the gurgle of the water. "You don't understand," Junsu says, and his hand on Yunho's cheek is freezing, even in the height of summer. "I don't have one. Just the water, and you." Junsu's smile is brilliant, edged with something Yunho doesn't recognise.

He _doesn't_ understand, quite, but he's always recognised that Junsu is different. "All right," Yunho says, pulls Junsu into his arms because that's what he does, and for once Junsu lets him. Yunho holds on, comforted by the solidity of Junsu in his arms. He's satisfied for Junsu to be just his, and here.

When Yunho's seventeen, his family moves away. He says goodbye to Junsu as if it's any other day, gets in the car and doesn't look back as they drive away from the house. Junsu wouldn't be there anyway.

Yunho spends the next six months hearing Junsu's voice in the fountain in the courtyard of his new school, seeing Junsu's face in the shimmer of the swimming pool before Yunho dives in and shatters it. Slowly, Yunho learns not to, learns to remind himself that this town is not a place where Junsu belongs, where Junsu could ever be.

He thinks he's hallucinating when he walks into the lecture hall, his first day at university, picks a seat at random and sees an almost-familiar face looking back at him from the next seat over.

"Hello, Yunho," Junsu says, and grins.


	3. An Abstract Insight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Changmin's always seen more than other people do - literally, not just metaphorically."

Changmin's always seen more than other people do - literally, not just metaphorically. He sees the magic hiding in the cracks of everyday life, the ghosts and whispers and bright shining things that walk crossways to the rest of the world. He could reach out, he thinks, touch one, hold it down and pin it to him, just by knowing it's there, but that's not what he wants. He prefers to watch them, to catch them in the corner of his eye and barely at the edge of hearing, to let them gild the edges of his life with invisible colour. He loves the tang of woodsmoke in the air with no bonfire to explain it, the hint of rain and ozone on a cloudless day, the silken brush when a shadow moves independent of the light.

On holiday afternoons, Changmin sits at pavement tables outside coffee shops, watching the people walk by, the little gods and broken things that flow between and through them, lets the moments spin through his fingers like thread drawing taut until it's time to go home and finish his homework.

One weekend morning Changmin walks past two boys dancing in the park - with or against each other, Changmin can't tell. One of them moves like water, as if it would destroy him to stay still; when he stops dancing and pushes hands through his hair and laughs as he claps the taller one on the back, Changmin thinks of sharks and swimming, thinks about opening the cage for a moment. Changmin wonders if the other one, the almost-ordinary one, knows what he's holding on to, who he's laughing with, if it would even matter to him.

On his way to his tutor's room in the university dorms that evening, Changmin passes a boy who carries the touch of magic around his shoulders and on his hands, lying against him like a second skin, caught in the curls on his head and glossing his mouth where someone might have kissed him goodbye. Changmin almost stops him, almost asks what it's like being that close to something like that, if it's worth it, the fear and the danger and the sorrow that must surely come with the territory. Instead Changmin nods the awkward greeting of strangers who catch each others' eyes by accident, and brushes past the other boy to his tutor's door.


	4. The Involuntary Powers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "No," Junsu says. "Just recognising a kindred spirit."

Yoochun meets Yunho and Junsu at a lecture during his second term. Yoochun's running late, arrives at an almost-full lecture hall, and casts about for an empty seat. Junsu slides over to make room for him, Yoochun mutters his thanks as he fumbles out his books and Junsu blinks at Yoochun, Junsu's gaze catching and holding at Yoochun's mouth.

"Do I have something on my face?" Yoochun asks, turning to Junsu, a little flustered by the intensity of the stare.

Junsu smiles suddenly, and it's bright like the sun striking sparks from the ocean; Yoochun's slightly dazzled. "No," Junsu says. "Just recognising a kindred spirit."

Yoochun doesn't know quite what to make of that comment, but luckily he's saved by Yunho, who leans across Junsu just then. "Ignore Junsu," Yunho says. "He's a little crazy." The smile and the sideways glance Yunho gives Junsu let Yoochun know he's teasing, and Yoochun smiles back.

"Yunho!" Junsu's yelp cuts across the quiet of the lecture hall; the lecturer walking in gives them a glare that makes them all shut up hurriedly.

Later, Junsu and Yunho introduce themselves properly, and Yoochun finds himself agreeing to meet them for coffee after his next lecture. They talk about class and movies and music, and it's comfortable, but Yoochun isn't completely won over until Yunho tells the story of how he left Junsu and Junsu found him again. Yunho smiles then; Yoochun can see the echoes of the relief and joy of that moment still lingering at the corners of Yunho's mouth, and it's as brilliant as Junsu's laughter

"He's important to me," Junsu says, more serious than he's been all afternoon. "You'd understand if you had someone like that."

Yoochun answers the not-quite question. "I do," he says. "I know."

\---

Jaejoong smiles when Yoochun tells him about his new acquaintances. "It's good for you to have friends, Yoochun," Jaejoong says, leaning into Yoochun's hands rubbing at the knots in his shoulders. "You're alone too much."

Yoochun doesn't startle, doesn't say, "But what about you?" He doesn't know how he would mean it, doesn't want the edges of the words he can hear in his mind to cut Jaejoong, who has never been able to have anyone but him. Instead he strokes down Jaejoong's neck from hairline to shoulder, presses a kiss to the top of Jaejoong's head and asks, "What do you feel like eating tonight?"  



	5. The Winds of Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "They're not supposed to touch him. It's not supposed to happen."

When he starts university, Changmin joins the choir; it's something he enjoys, and his mother and sisters like to hear him sing.

At his first practice, Changmin meets Yunho, but doesn't recognise him until Junsu appears from seemingly nowhere, throws an arm across Yunho's shoulders - casual, friendly, comfortable - and introduces himself as Yunho's keeper, Junsu. Changmin's eyes widen, not at Yunho's growl, but at the sudden realisation that these are the people he saw that day at the park. Yunho mistakes Changmin's expression and starts to apologise for Junsu; Changmin doesn't bother to correct the assumption, laughs it off instead. It would be too hard for Changmin to explain now why he stared at Junsu for a second before he could force his eyes to focus properly, why he couldn't stop slipping glances at Junsu's arm around Yunho, at how much at ease Yunho was being touched like that, at the way Yunho didn't shrug out from under Junsu's hands and the weight of his body.

And then Junsu calls Yoochun over to meet Changmin - Yoochun who still holds the touch of otherness barely outside his skin. This time Changmin at least has the presence of mind not to stare, shakes Yoochun's hand and doesn't lift his hand afterwards to see if the sparkle rubs off. Junsu hangs off Yoochun too, but Changmin is surprised to realise that he's not the one who's left those afterimages like visible fingerprints on Yoochun.

Later, Junsu shows off his range; his voice cracks on a note higher than Changmin expected, and Changmin laughs aloud at the unwitting appropriateness when Yoochun calls Junsu a dolphin. Junsu turns around, smacks Changmin in the shoulder the way Changmin imagines he would Yunho or Yoochun, and Changmin stops mid-laugh. They're not supposed to touch him. It's not supposed to happen. He'd half-expected Junsu's arm to go right through him, in fact, but it makes a sound like any other slap, stings just the same.

The way Changmin freezes seems to worry Junsu. "I'm sorry," Junsu says, "I didn't mean to hit you that hard," contrite and so normal Changmin doesn't know how he's supposed to react. He rubs at the spot, answers distractedly. It's nothing, just a smack between maybe friends, not even a hug, and yet Changmin suddenly sees avenues of opportunity he'd closed off years before falling open again before him.


	6. The Dreaded Cards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Changmin sees Jaejoong for the first time the way everyone else does."

Changmin sees Jaejoong for the first time the way everyone else does, as a statue no taller than his palm on Yoochun's desk, standing just below the windowsill with the sunshine striking off it. Changmin recognises what it is the moment he sees it, but doesn't know how to ask. He's so used to not talking about the things he sees that the habit is hard to break, and he doesn't even know whether he should try.

Months later, Changmin is at Yoochun's computer, making last-minute changes to his project while Yoochun does something arcane in the kitchen. (Changmin asked Yoochun where he learned to cook once. "From a friend," Yoochun had replied, his gaze straying towards the window.) Changmin jumps when Yoochun touches his shoulder. "Dinner's ready," Yoochun says, and Changmin turns the chair so he can look at Yoochun.

"Thank you," Changmin says.

"Well, I know how important food is to you." Yoochun's face is perfectly serious, but his eyes are laughing. Changmin sticks out his tongue and then Yoochun's hand is on his shoulder and Yoochun is kissing him.

Changmin kisses back for a few seconds before he realises what he's doing. "Wait," he says, pulling away as much as he can with the desk at his back. "What about..." his eyes slide to the figurine on the desk, too caught up in the moment to wonder if it's the right question, to think of how he's going to explain himself.

Yoochun's eyes are wide, as shocked as Changmin's. "How..." he asks, and then can't seem to think of a way to finish the question.

"I see things," Changmin says, smiles without any humour in it. "I sound crazy. But I know Jaejoong's not just a statue." (They've talked about him before, in the strange roundabout way Yoochun does; Changmin's learnt to read even further between the lines than is usual for him.)

Yoochun laughs, a little bitter, a little amused. "He thinks you're good for me."

"Oh," Changmin replies. He doesn't quite know what to do with that statement, what the right thing to say is.

"Well," Yoochun says, "at least now I know what he meant when he talked about you having secrets to tell too." He reaches across Changmin to Jaejoong, picks up the statue and puts it gently on the floor. "Jaejoong?" he asks.

Changmin watches, intrigued at the way the statue shifts and changes, and how suddenly another person is standing there in its place. He's beautiful, Changmin realises, beautiful as the statue was, and strange.

There's an awkward silence as they all look at each other, and then Jaejoong laughs and Changmin could almost mistake him for just another ordinary human being, save for the way Jaejoong's eyes shift colour, the way his hair seems to catch more light than is cast by the single overhead lamp. "This is ridiculous," Jaejoong says after a minute. "Hi Changmin, I'm Jaejoong."

Changmin smiles back; he can't help himself. "Hello," he says, "Nice to meet you finally," and then shakes his head at the inanity of his words.

Jaejoong shrugs in reply as if to say, 'What else can you say?' and Changmin thinks that maybe this can all work out. So far, it's easier than he would have imagined.

"You see him?" Yoochun asks, and when Changmin tears his eyes away from Jaejoong to look at Yoochun, the wonderment on Yoochun's face makes something go squishy and strange in Changmin's chest. He reaches for Yoochun's closest hand as Jaejoong takes a step forward and reaches for the other.

"I see him," Changmin replies, closing his fingers around Yoochun's.

"Really real," Jaejoong says, and wipes at Yoochun's face with his free hand.


	7. 'Til Break of Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There's something I should probably tell you."

Changmin pulls Yunho aside halfway through practice to ask if he and Junsu are free afterwards. "If you need us," Yunho replies, and wonders what it's about, why Changmin didn't just call and ask if there was something he wanted.

It becomes clear when Yoochun takes them up to his room, when they meet Jaejoong. Yunho surprises himself by accepting the whole strange story with very little effort, though the whispered conversation Changmin, Yoochun and Junsu have while Jaejoong stares at Yunho and says at length, "But why can _you_ see me?" worries Yunho a little. But when Junsu comes back to stand next to him, not quite touching, and says, "Yunho, there's something I should probably tell you," Yunho tucks his arm across Junsu's shoulders and says, "You don't need to, I already know." Because he does; somewhere in his mind he's known all along what Junsu is, and it's never mattered. Junsu was his best friend when he needed one, the gift he left behind that came back to him. That's all he's ever needed to know, and it doesn't surprise him at all.

Changmin and Yoochun cross the room to stand on either side of Jaejoong, and Yunho wonders whether it's a conscious choice. He watches Yoochun catch at Jaejoong's hand, sees the barely-there brush of Changmin's hand to the small of Jaejoong's back before Changmin steps up next to him, sees Jaejoong lean into both the touches, thinks that maybe it is, or maybe it's just that they don't have to think about it any more.

"Can you help, Junsu?" Changmin asks, and his expression is carefully blank, trying his best not to expect anything. Yunho looks at the hope-worry-anticipation on Yoochun's face as he watches Junsu, and thinks that must be what Jaejoong's lowered head and Changmin's tightly folded hands are trying to hide.

"I don't know," Junsu replies, his eyes flicking around the loose circle they form, Yunho, Changmin, Jaejoong, Yoochun and back to Yunho. "I don't know, but I could try."

Looking at Yoochun, at Changmin, at Jaejoong between them, Yunho knows it's the right answer. He tightens his arm around Junsu and says the same thing to himself. No promises, except they'll all try their best at whatever they can do.


	8. The Stroke of Midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Something," Junsu replies, "but I don't know what to do with it."

It's late when Junsu gets back from wherever he'd gone off to, but Yunho's still awake. He's got a textbook open in front of him - exams wait for no man or anything else - but really it's all just for appearances. Yunho's waiting for Junsu the way he has every time Junsu's gone looking for something to help Jaejoong, either by himself or with Changmin. Sometimes Yoochun waits with Yunho, or they both wait with Jaejoong, but tonight Yunho hadn't felt like watching Jaejoong pace and watching Yoochun watch him. Yunho looks up as the door opens, takes in the expression on Junsu's face. It's a still quietness that Yunho loves, a part of himself Junsu generally keeps safely hidden from the outside world. Yunho used to be the only one who'd seen it before Yoochun, and then Changmin, and now Jaejoong; Yunho's found he doesn't mind sharing but still, he likes these moments when it's just them.

"Still nothing?" Yunho asks.

Junsu sits down opposite Yunho, stretches a hand across the table almost carelessly, except that his fingertips come to rest bare millimeters from Yunho's knuckles, and there's nothing careless about that distance. "Something," Junsu replies, "but I don't know what to do with it."

Yunho closes his book and looks at Junsu, at his hand on the table, at how he's almost not-quite asking for contact, at how intent his eyes are on Yunho's face.

"What would you have to do?" Yunho asks, and closes his fingers over Junsu's. The way Junsu grips his hand in response comes closer to terrifying Yunho than anything else has in years. He almost gets up and walks around the table to hug Junsu, except that he doesn't think it's the right time for that just yet.

Junsu drops his eyes, stares at the table as if it contains the whole future written out in the grain of its wood, as if it, rather than Yunho, will answer his question. "Will you still need me if I'm just Junsu? If I'm not special any more?" Junsu asks, quieter than Yunho's ever heard him before.


	9. A Day of Welcome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are you coming?" Jaejoong asks to the room at large.

Yoochun looks from Jaejoong to Junsu, standing facing each other in the cleared center of Yoochun's room. "Is that all?" Yoochun asks, the question echoed in Changmin's face, in the involuntary step forward Yunho's taken.

"That's it," Junsu says, and lets go of Jaejoong's arm.

Jaejoong nods, almost to himself; both he and Junsu have faraway looks on their faces. Yoochun thinks they must be taking internal stock, figuring out the consequences of what they've just done. "Just one way to find out if it worked," Jaejoong says, walks over to the door and puts his hand on the handle. Yoochun feels a near-overwhelming sense of deja vu, his heart stuttering in his throat. He's seen this in his dreams, and not a few of his nightmares. Then Jaejoong looks back at them, and that's something new to Yoochun. "Are you coming?" Jaejoong asks to the room at large.

"Of course," Changmin replies, and follows Jaejoong as he opens the door and steps out. There's no flare of trumpets or flash of light, no heavenly choir, just Jaejoong stepping across the threshold of Yoochun's room into the corridor with Changmin on his heels, acting as if this is all perfectly normal.

Yoochun is frozen (wondering; terrified) until Yunho turns to him, smiles and nods towards the door, until Junsu is there in front of them, grabbing their hands and saying, "Come on, you don't want to miss this!"

\--

Jaejoong's eyes are just brown now, his hair just dyed blond. Junsu's smile isn't blinding, just bright, and his voice carries no more echoes of laughing water. Yoochun watches Jaejoong chase Changmin across the central courtyard as Junsu heckles Jaejoong for being too short to catch Changmin, Jaejoong's shouted threats of great and terrible retribution carrying back easily on the still summer air. Yoochun thinks that, from where he's sitting, they're as beautiful as they've ever been; from the fascinated look on Yunho's face, he agrees.


	10. Our Mortal World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This strange new human life."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, some 4000+ words later, here it is: the end of Every Human Love. It started as an ever so slightly crazed conversation with [](http://wmelon-kaiye.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://wmelon-kaiye.livejournal.com/)**wmelon_kaiye** about how I wanted a Jaejoong to keep on my shelf; even after I wrote the first part, it was supposed to be a stand-alone piece. I had no idea that this is where it'd end up. Thank you to everyone who's commented along the way, but especially to Jenny. This one's for you, dear. (No, I'm still not writing the hospital AU; don't ask.)

Jaejoong sits on a bench in the park and revels in the sunshine. Yoochun's taking a nap, stretched out with his head in Jaejoong's lap like a basking cat, and Jaejoong pushes his fingers absently through Yoochun's hair as he watches Junsu and Changmin and Yunho playing an odd game of football - two against one, but which two against which one is proving difficult to make out.

When Jaejoong looks down, Yoochun's eyes are open, watching him. Yoochun's arm rises to catch at Jaejoong's hand. "Are you happy, Jaejoong?" Yoochun asks.

Jaejoong smiles and turns his hand in Yoochun's grasp so they're palm to palm. After so long in each other's company, he's learnt to hear the questions layered under Yoochun's words; 'Are you happy to be here with us?' and 'Are you happy even though you're just human now?' and all the others there under the simple words. "I'm free, and I choose to be here with you," he says. It's answer enough for them both.

Just then, a ball comes flying in Jaejoong's direction, followed by a laughing Junsu, Changmin and Yunho watching from the field.

"Stop being lazy and come play with us," Junsu orders, taking the ball from Jaejoong.

Yoochun gives Junsu a look. "Who're you calling lazy?" he grumbles, but pushes himself up and holds out a hand to Jaejoong. "Shall we?" he asks.

Jaejoong takes the offer and lets Yoochun pull him to his feet, lets Junsu herd them both out to where Changmin and Yunho are waiting for them, lets them teach him how to play the game the way they've taught him how to live this strange new human life.


End file.
